


ARTs and Crafts

by Elizabeth Culmer (edenfalling)



Category: The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells
Genre: 3 Sentence Ficathon, Companionable Snark, Gen, Pen Pals, Post-Canon, Postcards, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-08 12:42:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17386667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenfalling/pseuds/Elizabeth%20Culmer
Summary: The difficulty with having a known location you return to on a semi-regular basis is that it gives people a way to find you.





	ARTs and Crafts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Idhren](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Idhren/gifts).



> Written 12/31/18 for [jjhunter](https://jjhunter.dreamwdith.org), in response to the prompt: [Murderbot, any, postcards from Asshole Research Transit](https://rthstewart.dreamwidth.org/139838.html?thread=5609278#cmt5609278).

The difficulty with having a known location you return to on a semi-regular basis -- all right, a home; I'm not actually allergic to the word, even if that would make an intriguing plot twist -- is that it gives people a way to find you. As a Sec-Unit, I'm predisposed to interpret that as a threat, but it turns out that sometimes people try to find each other for reasons that are more annoying than dangerous.

Which is a long and roundabout way of saying that ART sent me a postcard yesterday. Not an electronic transmission. An actual, physical piece of processed wood pulp with a glossy picture on the front and neat binary typeface on the back, because ART has a terrible sense of humor and earned their name for a reason.

The picture was of a nebula, which is not something I've ever paid much attention to. Nebulae are unlikely to exhibit direct hostile intent toward humans, and when they're acting as passive environmental hazards, their visual appearance is generally irrelevant compared to things like magnetic field interference. The colors didn't clash horribly.

The message said, "You don't have the instruments to fully appreciate this nebula, but neither do my crew and they tell me this color-enhanced still image is aesthetically pleasing despite the lack of microwave emission data. They also tell me that some cultures engage in a tradition known as 'housewarming gifts,' which I have verified through judicious sampling of media feeds. I note that several characters on _Sanctuary Moon_ engage in this tradition, and therefore hypothesize that you're also familiar with it. Please consider this a housewarming gift and display it upon a suitable flat vertical surface for public admiration."

I thought about asking Dr. Mensah for advice.

Then I decided that if I couldn't handle a social interaction with this degree of both physical and temporal lack of proximity, I should probably give up on the whole independent entity experiment. Well, not really. But you get my point.

I fastened the postcard to Mensah's son's cold storage unit with a magnet I borrowed from one of the broken household appliances her daughter likes to collect and occasionally attempts to repair. This is, according to my understanding, the traditional response to childhood art projects.

I took a still image of the postcard on the storage unit, scrambled the data file, and sent it out to ART's home university. I figure whenever it arrives, they'll appreciate the joke. If not, oh well. I did say their sense of humor is terrible.

**Author's Note:**

> Structural restrictions, what structural restrictions? *wry*


End file.
